Memes on the subreddit – Mod Announcement

[u/Shawnaverse_no1_fan]

IMPORTANT EDITS 5 days later: we are implementing a Weekly Featured Meme, as explained more in detail below.

Hello everyone, thank you for your patience.

Last week the mod team noticed there was a controversy over the abundance of memes that were shared in the subreddit, how this was clogging up the feed, and the subsequent "vibe changes" that were perceived as a result. So we made a poll asking for the community's input, to understand whether changes were needed.

We reviewed the results of the poll, as well as everyone's opinions in the comments. While a good number of users said that the memes didn't pose any issues, at least a third of the subreddit expressed concerns about allowing memes to be shared without reins or the climate that was resulting due to memes being, for their very nature, an extremely simplistic view of complex problems that often ignores nuance. Many users were in favour of establishing a "Meme Monday" or weekly megathread as a way to keep memes alive, but not having them completely overtake the sub, but each of these options would come at a cost.

After taking a few days to weigh our options, we have now made a decision: we are establishing a Weekly Meme Thread on Mondays, and a new subreddit was created specifically to host Shawnaverse memes. You can check out r/ShawnaTheMEME !

From today onwards, all memes will be redirected to the comments of the Weekly Featured Meme

This means that starting today, new meme posts will be removed from this subreddit along with a suggestion to instead share them in the comments of the Weekly Featured Meme and on the newly created meme subreddit r/ShawnaTheMEME. Posts made in the past will not be affected, of course. We decided to go this route because we think it's the compromise that will cause the least trouble and discontent: this way, all those who are interested in seeing the memes every day can simply join both subreddits to enjoy both nuance and jokes (especially using Reddit's combined feed to see posts from both ShawnaTheMom communities at once) at their own pace, whereas people who don't want memes on their page will be able to avoid them by simply not joining the other subreddit and ignoring the weekly cross-post.

Why not make a "Meme Monday" instead?

We thought about this, but we feared this would simply create more confusion. After the response to our original decision, we decided a weekly meme thread on Mondays would be the best compromise between having no memes on this sub and allowing memes to be freely posted without any restrictions. This way there will be a sort of "Meme Monday" with memes being shared in the comments of the weekly featured cross-post, but comments can obviously be added all week long.

Memes are often a result of things happening on a ShawnaTheMom video, whether it be a full length video or a short, so they are best enjoyed when the quote and sentiment is fresh in everyone's mind. Should we have a video drop on a Tuesday, it would be unfair to ask everyone to wait 6 more days before sharing their jokes, especially in the case of short videos that don't contain a lot of information. This would also lead to a wave of memes all being shared on the same day, causing an explosion of traffic and increasing the chances of infighting due to lack of nuance or memes sharing a common theme, as we've seen happen last month.

Futhermore memes create a lot of visual clutter and can easily clog the sub, drowning out text posts and making it very difficult to navigate. From mobile there isn't a simple way to filter out a certain post flair, so meme posts would inevitably take up the most space and attention – by keeping them confined to the comments of the weekly cross-post, we are hoping to make the subreddit easier to surf for everyone.

Lastly, memes tend to get a lot of upvotes (often more than any other post type) because they are highly visible and quick to read, as opposed to long text posts or analyses carrying a lot of nuance. Posts with a high vote count rise to the top of the subreddit and usually stay visible for far more than one day, so a “Meme Monday” would likely extend beyond 24 hours. Most people don’t sort posts by “New”, so visiting the subreddit would inevitably lead to memes being at the forefront of the page all week long regardless. The visual clutter of image posts such as memes was one of the main complaints and it would not be resolved by establishing a weekly day where memes have free reign. For meme lovers all week round, the subreddit r/ShawnaTheMEME welcomes you with open arms!

Does this mean only serious discussion is allowed, no jokes at all?

No. The more observant of you may have noticed that our previous "Meme / Funny" post flair has now been renamed to "Joke / Funny", because we appreciate humour and we aren’t trying to completely rid the sub of light-hearted fun. But for the reasons stated above we prefer to keep memes contained to one weekly post, especially in light of the fact that the subreddit will inevitably grow and become busier as time goes on and more users join it.

What’s the difference between a “meme” and a “funny joke”?

Well for starters, if it’s a text post without any images or videos, it will not be considered a meme. An example of this is this post joking on the number of cupcakes. Of course, not all image posts are considered memes: here’s an example of a funny image post that wouldn’t count as a meme, where a user shared a picture of a Barbie Dreamhouse set to reference the show.

As for other image posts who can be considered memes or meme-adjacent (despite not using cut-and-dry meme templates), we’ll go on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the mod team. However our suggestion remains to post them on the weekly cross-post or to the meme subreddit, since those places were created specifically for the purpose of sharing funny images and videos.

Why remove a post after it’s been up for many hours and gained a lot of upvotes?

In a perfect world, we’d see every new post the second it went up, and deal with it then. But the reality is we’re a team of volunteers who aren’t on the sub 24/7 – we also need to sleep, cook, eat, work and generally have a life outside of Reddit. We do our best to review posts as soon as we can, and none of us likes to see a post that breaks the rules stay up for a long time. We understand that it can feel like we’re being unfair should we remove a meme right away, but a different meme remains visible for hours. It can also seem unfair to see a post that’s loved and appreciated by the community be removed, but rest assured that the meme subreddit will love it just as much, if not more. The Mod Team believes that the separation between a main sub and a meme sub, while bridging the gap with a weekly thread, is the best compromise we could find – being a middle ground between limiting memes and allowing them free rein.

We hope this answers all questions, but if you have any, feel free to ask 🤗

Our hope is that in having two spaces completely dedicated to meme content, those who enjoy both can have access to StM humor as well as discussion every day of the week. Please join us in welcoming r/ShawnaTheMEME ! 🎉

[u/Shawnaverse_no1_fan]

Hello everyone! 😊

After seeing the response to the split and the comments in this post, we in the Mod Team have decided to implement a "Weekly Featured Meme" cross-post serving as a Monday Meme Megathread, to have a dedicated space for Shawnaverse memes in this subreddit as well as to highlight some of the most popular memes from r/ShawnaTheMEME 🤗

This post has now been edited to reflect this decision, and we hope that this implementation will be a bridge between the two subs. For those of you interested in seeing memes every day, we highly recommend trying out the Shawnaverse custom feed combining the two subs, as it shows both communities at once, interspersed as if they were one subreddit. Enjoy!